Mobile workshop in Kenya 23-24th May 2011

Use of Mobile Technologies to Support Disease Surveillance, Education and Knowledge Sharing in the Veterinary Sector
Workshop

Date: 23-24 May 2011
Venue: Chiromo Campus, University of Nairobi Veterinary School, Kenya

Context
Mobile technologies are now increasingly being used across Africa for everything from phone to SMS texting. This is associated with widespread access to affordable mobile networks and handsets. In many cases, this technology has overtaken the use of landline phones, radio and internet for communication in rural communities. Innovative examples of the potential of these mobile devices include the potential to make small SMS payments, receiving text alerts of market prices or receiving medication reminders for TB treatment. The recent development and access to second generation mobile devices offers significant new opportunities for veterinary disease surveillance and prevention in Africa. It also provides new ways for dissemination advice and guidance to farmers and paravets in the field. Finally the two way communication available through tools such as SMS and Twitter provides great opportunities for sharing knowledge.

This workshop will provide the opportunity to review some of the recent developments in the use of mobile devices in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The intention is to bring together technologists, practitioners and policy makers in order to develop new approaches to the use of mobiles particularly in East Africa. The event will also embrace the wider perspectives of one health including the use of mobiles in wildlife, human and animal health.

Contact

To book a place at the workshop, please email Nick Short at nshort@rvc.ac.uk.

Programme

23rd May 2011 - New Learning Technologies

9.30	Arrival and Registration
10.00	Welcome (Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College)
10.10	Opening address (Professor Prof. Njenga Munene, Dean of Faculty)
10.20	Current application of ICT in Kenya (Dr Omwenga, University of Nairobi)
10.40	Veterinary use of e-learning in the UK (Dr Raymond Macharia, Royal Veterinary College)
11.00	Mobile learning and social networks (Dr Niall Winters, London Knowledge Lab)
11.20	Coffee
12.00	WikiVet in Africa (Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College)
12.20	New opportunities for e-learning at the Nairobi Veterinary School (Dr Mosiany Kisipan)
12.40	Future use of new technologies to enhance Kenyan education (Kenya Institute of Education)
13.00	Lunch
14.00	Hands on workshop to review a range of mobile learning packages and technologies... (Nick Short and Dr Niall Winters)
18.00	Evening reception

24th May - Mobile Surveillance

9.30	Arrival and Registration
10.00	Using EpiCollect for mobile surveillance (Dr David Aanensen, Imperial College)
10.20	Field based experience of the mobile surveillance in Kenya (Dr Gabriel Turhasha, Vetaid Kenya)
10.40	Mobile phones for One Health data collection (SACIDS)
11.00	Mobiles in geographical mapping (Geography Dept, University of Nairobi)
11.20	Coffee
12.00	Working with mobiles in remote communities (CAHNET and Farm Africa)
12.20	International examples of mobile data collection (FAO Rome)
12.40	Closing remarks and review of workshop outputs (Professor Prof. Njenga Munene, Dean of Faculty)
13.00	Lunch
14.00	Hands on workshop to review a range of mobile surveillance technologies (Dr David Aanensen and Dr Gabriel Turhasha)

Do you have an old Android phone...

Our use of the Android platform in East Africa for collecting animal disease data, sharing information and providing access to learning resources has come a long way in the last 3 years. We are now trying to encourage advanced Android users to send us their old handsets for use on our projects in Africa. This post is an attempt to summarise some of the experiences we have had to date and how any donated phones might be of value to our African partners....

How it all started....
Back in 2008 I traveled out to Tanzania with a group of vets to raise funds for the veterinary charity Vetaid by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. When we got down from the summit, I spent some time with the Masai cattle farmers to learn a little more about the problems they face and how Vetaid has been helping them by training  barefoot vets or Community Animal Health Workers. Despite the very basic resources available to these field workers and the tough conditions, one thing that impressed me was that they were already all using basic Nokia phones to text questions about diseases to each other.

Community Animal Health Worker in Siminijaro District, Tanzania 2008

Using ODK in Zanzibar

In 2009 we started working with Vetaid to explore how we might use second generation smart phones to  collect disease and vaccination data more effectively in the field. This front line surveillance is an important part of disease control for conditions such as East Coast Fever which kills many thousands of cattle in the area as well as detecting emerging epidemics such as avian flu which can kill people too.

We teamed up with Kevin and Carl, two inspired Android developers from Novoda,  who started work (at no cost) on using the Open Data Kit developed by Yaw Aokwa and his team to develop a prototype data collection platform running on old G1 phones donated by colleagues. This was first tested in Zanzibar by a research team of veterinary students working on cattle disease surveillance. They also used  the phones effectively to stay in touch using Twitter and did some initial education trials running videos off the Micro SD cards. This pilot was generally considered to be a success but there were some additional software and hardware issues we had not predicted.

Next Steps - the EpiCollect Application

Following on from the Zanzibar experience, we made a number of presentations of our work including to the 2010 Handheld Learning Conference, International Association for Medical Education 2010 and Africa Gathering 2010. Here we established links with a range of colleagues in the mobile sector including Niall Winters from the London Knowledge Lab, Guy Collender from the London International Development Centre and David Aanensen from Imperial College. We arranged a series of UK and Kenya/Tanzania meetings with our colleagues in Vetaid and also the new Google/Rockefeller SACIDS initiative.

At about this time David had launched the EpiCollect application which allowed us to develop a range of GPS linked data forms to capture data on animal disease. This tool proved really popular with our colleagues in the field as they had no problem developing basic forms through a web interface whilst it was also possible to create more sophisticated linked forms when needed. Most importantly the system worked and in field trials working with Vetaid vets, they were able to collect quality vaccination data in the field for analysis by the programme.

Android Handsets
Having developed the software application, the next challenge was to find sufficient handsets to run it on. We did some field usability testing of a range of different handsets ranging from the latest HTC Desire through to the low cost and locally sourced Huwaei and the old G1. The results indicated that the most important features were a physical keyboard, good screen resolution in strong sunlight, reasonable battery life and robustness. With these criteria, the G1 actually came out as the preferred handset despite its age and older design!


At about the same time that we had decided to adopt the G1 as our main handset, I had a call from Fiona Lee of Google who had heard about our work in Kenya from Joanne Stevens in their local Nairobi office. Fiona offered to see if she could help find some second hand G1 phones and put us in touch with Paa Kwesi and Nicola Dixon at Google London. They put the word around the office and quickly came up with over 20 phones which staff donated when they migrated to the Nexus. It was a great day when we were able to bring in some of our African colleagues to collect these phones at Google London (and have lunch too!).


What Next....
I spoke with the Head of Vetaid Kenya, Dr Gabriel Turasha yesterday (sadly Vetaid UK has been disbanded). He said that the donated phones are still in widespread use throughout Kenya. Some are in the hands of front line Community Animal Health Workers monitoring vaccination programmes whilst other are on loan to government vets who are involved with the FAO on a large scale disease programme. One of the great strengths of their use is that Gabriel can check the Google Map data for each phone to confirm where it is and how often it is being used. Interestingly most of the users have opted to insert their own SIM cards into the phone and cover the cost of data access themselves for the benefit of using a smartphone.


We would now like to progress further with the project by providing phones with a Micro SD pre-installed knowledge base derived from our own WikiVet project (translated by students into Swahili). These phones will also have EpiCollect forms and Google Chat running and configured. Through our distribution channels we can be confident that phones collected in the UK will reach Kenya where we can then use our local expertise to unlock and configure them before distribution. 


So we would really like to encourage anyone who has an old working G1 which they no longer need to consider sending it to us. We will aim to acknowledge every phone received and also will try and provide a GPS fix on where it ends up in Africa and what it is being used for. So if you can help, please send your phone to :


Nick Short
Head of e-media Unit
Royal Veterinary College
Royal College Street
LONDON NW1 0AT
United Kingdom


Home page : http://www.rvc.ac.uk/staff/nshort.cfm
Email : nshort@rvc.ac.uk


If you are interested in knowing more, please consider attending our two day workshop in Nairobi on the  23 and 24th May 2011

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Delivering video by mobile phone to classrooms in Tanzania | eLearning Africa News Portal

Delivering video by mobile phone to classrooms in Tanzania | eLearning Africa News Portal

Workshop : Use of Mobile Technologies to support Disease Surveillance, Education and Knowledge Sharing in the Veterinary Sector

Date: 23-24 May 2011

Venue: Chiromo Campus, University of Nairobi Veterinary School, Kenya

Mobile technologies are now increasingly being used across Africa for everything from phone to SMS texting. This is associated with widespread access to affordable mobile networks and handsets. In many cases, this technology has overtaken the use of landline phones, radio and internet for communication in rural communities. Innovative examples of the potential of these mobile devices include the potential to make small SMS payments, receiving text alerts of market prices or receiving medication reminders for TB treatment. The recent development and access to second generation mobile devices offers significant new opportunities for veterinary disease surveillance and prevention in Africa. It also provides new ways for dissemination advice and guidance to farmers and paravets in the field. Finally the two way communication available through tools such as SMS and Twitter provides great opportunities for sharing knowledge.

This workshop will provide the opportunity to review some of the recent developments in the use of mobile devices in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The intention is to bring together technologists, practitioners and policy makers in order to develop new approaches to the use of mobiles particularly in East Africa. The event will also embrace the wider perspectives of one health including the use of mobiles in wildlife, human and animal health.

More information